Screenwriter needs your help

[macdougal]

Cheers LS,
I was under the impression everyone was mixed. Im not overly worried about prison, because genuinely think it wont get to that. The lies in my accusers statement are so blatent even a fool would notice.
However, Im a slight pessimist and always prepare for the very worst. I know it would break me if I was over confident and then the worst happened.

[RFLH]

macdougal - very wise to be aware that you could be falsely imprisoned.

As you say, prepare for the worst and then it can only get better.

[macdougal]

As I've somewhere else as well RFLH my biggest fear is losing out on my daughter growing up.
Ive been given the name and contact number of one of the best solicitors in my area who will do it all on legal aid as its a friend of a friend so because there is no evidence suggesting ive done anything wrong as the sex was totally consensual, and her story doesnt match up, I'm confident the worst case scenario for me is court with a fairly quick acquital.
But yes as you say prepare for the worst and I really am. Which my friends and family keep moaning at me for but I just cant help it

[RFLH]

Ignore the moaning - prepare for everything.

Just because the evidence is glaringly evident to you it doesn't mean that the jury will see it.

They have made their minds up in the first 10 seconds evidence suggests (I shall try to find the article) most juries are stupid (sorry to all those that have served or will serve on one).

With sex cases they don't want to be seen to condone unacceptable behaviour, a case of there but for the grace of, with many on the jury. It all depends on what is in the news that week - guilt by association.

It's all down to who can put on the best show - if it comes down to video evidence or her choosing to use a screen - that shows the jury that she's terrified of you and should be protected.

Truth and justice rarely get a look in. It's merely word play.

[LS]

RFLH is right, in my opinion, about juries. I've done a few Sales courses with various companies over the years and one of the things they told me (Barclaycard in particular) was that communication is only 7% verbal. The remaining 93% is body language, ie visual.

As we human beings generally make our minds up about someone in the first ten seconds of meeting them, that means the jury have made their minds up mostly with you sat there not saying a word.

Also, I thought they had to omit emotions and just consider the evidence impartially and thoughtfully. When I was giving evidence, one of the jury members - a young guy about 22/23 - constantly stared at me as if I was something he'd just stepped in. There's no way anyone can tell me he was doing any deliberating in the jury room unemotionally.

Back to the blatancy issue, mine couldn't reliably name a place, a date, a time, what either she or I was wearing, what my bits looked like, plus she was still a virgin - the medical report showing that oddly wasn't produced. Plus she was caught lying, as were her witnesses. My g/f's mum sat in, and she said that girls remember their first time, wanted or not, fully. Every single detail, yet this one couldn't describe a thing. In my view it was a travesty, yet the hardest thing is I don't have a thing I can take to an appeal court.

[RFLH]

I'd have thought that if the evidence of her being a virgin and can be back up with hard medical evidence, wasn't brought up - then that would be classed as fresh evidence and grounds for appeal. RF will put me right on that!!

Was that in the unused bundle?

[LS]

You would think so, but the fact is that if something was available at the time of the trial, whether used or not, it is not therefore valid for any appeal. Fresh evidence is really anything that has come to light since.

In any event, I walked into the trial accused of having unlawful sex, and ended up being accused of "attempting to". Being accused of Attempting To anything is virtually impossible to defend. The only defence to that is an alibi of being elsewhere, but if you were in that house at that time, there is no way to defend it, unless you have witnesses to certify you didn't. As with all of these Falsely Accused claims, there's never a witness around.

As I have found with many of these Falsely Accused trials, or those which constitute same, the rules of common sense and the legal facts, are just shoved to one side and conveniently ignored.

[LS]

This is why, in an ideal world, I'm so tempted to put every single document from the case in the public domain and say "There. How do you think I got convicted on that evidence?"

[RFLH]

You could try it afterwards - but you'd still get the 'no smoke without fire' brigade that would choose to read it the wrong way.

[LS]

True, but if all is put out, not the just case but the proof of the Dad's past actions towards me over 20-odd years, the smoke suddenly doesn't exist. Yes, one may end up with the ignorants who'll believe what they want to believe by virtue of ignoring the truth and believing the salacious lies. I would hope that one day they find themselves in a similar situation of being accused of something they didn't do and then perhaps, one by one, they may suddenly accept that I was telling the truth.

[Saffron]

Trial by jury is a joke, as far as I'm concerned. One of the juror's at R's trial was actually asleep during the Judge's summing up! Our accuser was caught out lying under oath three times, but the jury disregarded this completely. Didn't help that our barrister was completely inept, and kept calling the accuser the wrong name - a boy's name!
I don't believe for one second that the jury discussed anything. They were out for 45 minutes over lunch. So, they all had to use the loo, take a cigarette break, eat their lunch and consider 2 days worth of evidence. And they managed to do all that in 45 minutes. Miraculous.

[LS]

That's always been my bone of contention about juries. At the very best they cannot know the truth, they weren't there. And plain and simple logic shows us every day how a number of people can all look at the same thing and come up with different opinions and judgements. That's why we as a species are individual, and we don't all live in identical mud huts, all drive Mondeos, all eat the same lunch and dinner and only have one brand of supermarket from one end of the country to the other.
Funny how the legal system can be expected to come anywhere close to working when people have this often flawed facet - flawed certainly when it is applied to something which affects someone else but not themselves.

[Saffron]

The problem is that frequently in these cases there is no "hard" evidence - it boils down to one word against another. And who are the jury going to believe? the person standing in the dock with a guard (which carries an automatic inference of guilt) or the person giving evidence who is so "scared" they have to speak via video-link or from behind a screen? (automatic inference of victim status there!)

The jury in the Ian Huntley case spent days deliberating their verdict, even though the overwhelming evidence was that he had killed those two little girls. He had even admitted disposing of their bodies, for goodness sake!

There was a crumb of comfort for us though. at sentencing, our Judge said that he had no doubt that my husband was a hard-working family man, but because he has protested his innocence and forced his victim to undergo a trial, he had no option but to pass a custodial sentence. He also refused to put R on the SOR, which is truly exceptional. He then ordered a "closed court" after sentencing, and told the two barristers that he felt the jury had not spent enough time considering the evidence. He said that in his opinion, the amount of alcohol consumed was in itself enough for "reasonable doubt".

Ho hum. Shame the jury couldn't see it.

[LS]

Quite. That's part of the anger I feel, as no doubt many here do; How could the jury convict on that?
The reason I didn't fly off the handle at the jury was because I didn't want the bggr behind my case knowing I was peed off. Had he not been there, I'd have quite happily shouted at the jury that ten of them needed to be members of the RNIB, and not to forget their white sticks when they left.
I was so angry. I remember 2 of them's names very clearly, if I ever knowingly encountered them (which, luckily for them won't happen) they'd be in for one hell of a tongue-lashing and an enforced read of all of the paperwork.

[AMVC]

Thank you for all the posts folks

i really feel what was said about surreality.

This has been brought to the fore by a number of members and I will try to express this the best I can.

i felt like my morals, standards and values had all been violated.

If you happen to be reading this please correct me if I'm off target, but for some men, I think this is the deeper level stimulus that fuels the want to fight to the bitter end and clear their name in a court of law, or by any means necessary.
Naturally, rapist/sex offender isn't what any innocent man wants to be labelled and disgraced with, but crushing the charges only settles the imprisonment consequence and shames the alleger, which is far short of enough.

A man with a staunch, wholesome moral code and convictions he is proud of, learned from a life lived, would be disgusted by the thought of him, or any other person, forcing themselves upon a woman without consent.
He would not only want to show the world that wronged him how they could be so wrong, but, moreover, that he is, without question, not made of the stuff that could EVER rape or sexual assult a woman.

LifeSucks:
Thank you for the detailed information about the inner walls of prison life. Although the story I wish to tell won't feature imprisonment, I think I can use some of what you have explained.

I don't believe for one second that the jury discussed anything. They were out for 45 minutes over lunch. So, they all had to use the loo, take a cigarette break, eat their lunch and consider 2 days worth of evidence. And they managed to do all that in 45 minutes. Miraculous.

This is hardly 12 Angry Men.